Murder victim discovered to have two sets of DNA due to rare conditionFri, 02 Jan 2026 08:00:32 +0000 A woman's body has been found to consist of varying proportions of male and female cells because of an extremely rare form of chimerism | |
The best new popular science books of 2026Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 Clear out your shelves for a bumper new crop of books by authors including Naomi Klein, Rebecca Solnit and Xand Van Tulleken, says culture editor Alison Flood | |
The best new science fiction books of 2026Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 On the horizon for this year are Ann Leckie's latest, Neil Jordan's debut and more from Adrian Tchaikovsky. Exciting times, says our sci-fi columnist Emily H. Wilson | |
Rare Saturn-sized rogue planet is first to have its mass measuredThu, 01 Jan 2026 19:00:40 +0000 Researchers have confirmed the mass of a free-floating planet thanks to a lucky convergence of ground- and space-based telescopes | |
Chess can be made fairer by rearranging the piecesThu, 01 Jan 2026 19:00:10 +0000 Chess960 involves shuffling the pieces at the back of the board, and an analysis suggests doing so can increase the complexity of the game to favour white, black or neither player | |
World's first subsea desalination facility will start running in 2026Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:00:28 +0000 Flocean, a Norwegian company, is set to open the world’s first commercial-scale subsea desalination plant, an approach that could cut the cost and energy used to make seawater drinkable | |
2026 Mars mission will set out to solve the mystery of its moonsTue, 30 Dec 2025 18:00:10 +0000 The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will be launching the Martian Moons eXploration mission next year, which should finally tell us how Mars acquired the moons Phobos and Deimos | |
Could James and the Giant Peach inspire the future of food?Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 In the latest in our imagined history of inventions yet to come, Future Chronicles columnist Rowan Hooper reveals how by the 2030s, botanists had worked out how to grow hybridised superplants to help feed the world | |
The weight-loss drugs on trial in 2026 may trump Ozempic and ZepboundTue, 30 Dec 2025 18:00:40 +0000 Drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound have transformed how we treat obesity, but more effective treatments could be down the road | |
The 3 things you should do this New Year to foster a positive mindsetThu, 01 Jan 2026 09:00:29 +0000 Olivia Remes, a mental health researcher at the University of Cambridge, says these are the three things everyone should do this New Year to cultivate a more positive mindset | |
US to fire up small reactors in 2026 as part of 'nuclear renaissance'Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:00:10 +0000 Eleven companies are working towards an ambitious goal as part of the US Department of Energy's plan to fast-track the development of advanced nuclear reactor technologies | |
Could 2026 be the year we start using quantum computers for chemistry?Wed, 31 Dec 2025 17:00:30 +0000 Understanding the chemical properties of a molecule is an inherently quantum problem, making quantum computers a good tool for the job – and we may start seeing this take off in 2026 | |
The emotion you never knew you had, and how to feel more of itTue, 30 Dec 2025 16:00:54 +0000 The warm and fuzzy emotion of kama muta underlies vital feel-good experiences like social connection and feeling part of something bigger. But are you getting enough of it? | |
EU carbon border tax will force others to cut emissions from 2026Tue, 30 Dec 2025 14:00:32 +0000 In 2026, the European Union will start charging a carbon-emissions-based tax on imported goods such as steel, cement and fertilisers – and countries including the UK are likely to follow | |
Three supermassive black holes have been spotted merging into oneWed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:27 +0000 Astronomers have found a system of three supermassive black holes, all actively feeding, that appear to be combining into a single system – a rare event that will help elucidate the physics of complex mergers | |
We'll learn about LSD's potential for treating anxiety in 2026Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:00:46 +0000 Two later-stage trials investigating LSD for treating anxiety are due to conclude in 2026, which could lead to the drug being approved for the common mental health condition | |
The duo kite-skiing 4000 kilometres across Antarctica for scienceWed, 31 Dec 2025 08:00:57 +0000 An explorer and a glaciologist are kite-skiing across Antarctica with a ground-penetrating radar to gather data that will help understand the past and future of the ice sheet | |
Star that seemed to vanish more than 130 years ago is found againTue, 30 Dec 2025 19:00:44 +0000 In 1892, astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard thought he saw a bright star near Venus, but then it vanished. We may now know why | |
Physicists stirred up controversy with scientific cooking tips in 2025Tue, 30 Dec 2025 17:00:12 +0000 Cacio e pepe pasta and boiled eggs were the subjects of meticulous studies aiming to help cooks achieve perfection, but the reimagined recipes weren't always well-received | |
The century-long hunt for the gigantic meteorite that vanishedTue, 30 Dec 2025 16:00:07 +0000 A soldier returned from the Sahara desert in 1916 with a wild story about a meteorite that dwarfed all others. Over 100 years of hunting yielded nothing – but now twin brothers think they have solved the puzzle | |
The cassette tape made a comeback in 2025 thanks to a DNA upgradeTue, 30 Dec 2025 14:00:38 +0000 With a storage capacity of 36 petabytes, a DNA-based cassette tape can hold every song every recorded, and it could be on the market within five years | |
The best and most ridiculous robots of 2025 in picturesMon, 29 Dec 2025 14:00:19 +0000 Some of the world's most advanced robots showed off their skills at tech shows and sporting events, doing everything from cooking shrimp to running half marathons | |
A controversial experiment threatened to kill the multiverse in 2025Tue, 30 Dec 2025 11:00:08 +0000 A photon was apparently detected in two places at once in a twist on the classic double-slit experiment, but many physicists didn't accept the results | |
Benefits of mRNA cancer vaccines could exceed $75 billion in US aloneTue, 30 Dec 2025 08:00:48 +0000 An analysis of ongoing trials suggests that mRNA cancer vaccines have the potential to deliver health benefits worth $75 billion each year in the US alone | |
Mathematicians unified key laws of physics in 2025Mon, 29 Dec 2025 17:00:38 +0000 It took 125 years, but in 2025 a team of mathematicians discovered the solution to a long-puzzling problem about the equations that govern the behaviour of particles in a fluid | |
Low on energy? A new understanding of rest could help revitalise youMon, 29 Dec 2025 16:00:36 +0000 There is a state of relaxation that few of us spend much time in, but which comes with profound well-being benefits. With healthier ageing, reduced risk of disease and feeling more energised all on offer, here's how to get there | |
Human-plant hybrid cells reveal truth about dark DNA in our genomeMon, 29 Dec 2025 08:00:24 +0000 It has been claimed that because most of our DNA is active, it must be important, but now human-plant hybrid cells have been used to show this activity is mostly random noise | |
Inside world's ultimate X-ray machine before it becomes more powerfulMon, 29 Dec 2025 12:00:42 +0000 The Linac Coherent Light Source in California has been firing record-breaking X-ray pulses for years, but now it’s due for a shutdown and an upgrade. When it is turned back on, it will be even more powerful | |
Microsoft made a splash with a controversial quantum computer in 2025Mon, 29 Dec 2025 11:00:41 +0000 The Majorana 1 quantum computer was hailed as a significant breakthrough by Microsoft, but critics say the company has yet to prove it actually works despite a year of debate | |
New Year's resolutions work better if you know what to measureTue, 23 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 From our immune systems to our microbiomes, if you're planning to make health improvements in the new year, having an eye on the numbers can help set you up for success | |
Gene-edited babies are the future – but these CRISPR start-ups aren’tMon, 29 Dec 2025 06:00:30 +0000 Three start-ups are aiming to create gene-edited babies. Columnist Michael Le Page has no doubt that editing our offspring will one day become routine, but not like this | |
Why we all need a little festive pedantry when it comes to snowflakesTue, 23 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 Mathematician Katie Steckles explains just why the proliferation of snowflake decorations this time of year is deeply annoying | |
The essential guide to proving we’ve found alien lifeMon, 22 Dec 2025 16:00:37 +0000 From mudstones on Mars to strange gases in exoplanet atmospheres, tentative evidence for extraterrestrial life is starting to come thick and fast. But when we've found it, how will we know for sure? | |
Can a new book crack one of neuroscience's hardest problems? Not quiteTue, 23 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 The ideas presented in George Lakoff and Srini Narayanan's The Neural Mind are fascinating, but the writing is far less compelling | |
You can upgrade your immune system, but not in the way you thinkMon, 22 Dec 2025 12:00:57 +0000 From vitamin C to your microbiome and mindset, the latest science of immunity is often counterintuitive. Here's how to give your system a fighting chance to overcome infection | |
Mathematicians spent 2025 exploring the edge of mathematicsFri, 26 Dec 2025 17:00:04 +0000 Somewhere at the edge of mathematics lurks a number so large that it breaks the very foundations of our understanding - and in 2025 we came a step closer to finding it | |
2025's best photos of the natural world, from volcanoes to icebergsFri, 26 Dec 2025 14:00:27 +0000 A village buried by a landslide, the world’s largest tidal bore and the aftermath of ferocious storms and wildfires appear in our pick of images from environment stories this year | |
Was 2025 the year we found signs of past life on Mars?Fri, 26 Dec 2025 11:00:39 +0000 Tantalising signs of past microbial life showed up on Mars this year, but to truly know whether they contain the answer to the biggest question in the universe, we will need to bring samples back to Earth | |
'Spectacular' progress has been made towards useful quantum computersFri, 26 Dec 2025 08:00:07 +0000 At the Q2B Silicon Valley conference, scientific and business leaders of the quantum computing industry hailed "spectacular" progress being made towards practical devices – but said that challenges remain | |
A ghostly glow was seen emanating from living things in 2025Thu, 25 Dec 2025 17:00:38 +0000 The detection of mercurial particles of light emanating from mice led to a flurry of interest in biophotons, a mysterious phenomenon that could have applications in agriculture | |
6 incredible new dinosaurs we discovered in 2025Thu, 25 Dec 2025 14:00:37 +0000 Palaeontologists reported some remarkable dinosaur fossils this year, including a Velociraptor relative, a dome-headed pachycephalosaur and one of the most heavily armoured creatures that ever lived | |
How not to misread science fictionTue, 23 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 Focusing on the futuristic tech that appears in sci-fi without paying attention to the actual point of the story is a big mistake, says Annalee Newitz | |
The world’s first fully 3D-printed microscope went big in 2025Thu, 25 Dec 2025 11:00:04 +0000 A microscope that cost less than £50 and took under 3 hours to build using a common 3D printer could be transformative for students and researchers with limited funding | |
Why it is important to make space for solitude over the festive seasonTue, 23 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 The festive season is a period of social connection for many of us, but alone time can be equally enriching, says Thuy-vy Nguyen, principal investigator of the Solitude Lab | |
What is Bryan Johnson up to now? We try to explainTue, 23 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 Feedback's eyebrows are raised at tech millionaire Bryan Johnson's latest exploits, which involve Grimes, music, and hallucinogenic mushrooms | |
Bill Bryson on why he has updated A Short History of Nearly EverythingTue, 23 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 With the human family tree now more like a hedge and twice as many known moons, Bill Bryson talks to the New Scientist podcast about refreshing his 2003 bestselling book on science | |
Physicists used 'dark photons' in an effort to rewrite physics in 2025Wed, 24 Dec 2025 17:00:45 +0000 A new theory of "dark photons" attempted to explain a centuries-old experiment in a new way this year, in an effort to change our understanding of the nature of light | |
The most amazing archaeology photos and discoveries of 2025Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:26 +0000 The first Denisovan skull, an ancient hunter’s toolkit and a Roman man’s brain that has turned to glass: here are our picks of the year’s most striking findings about prehistoric humans | |
More than 100 moons were discovered in our own solar system in 2025Wed, 24 Dec 2025 11:00:17 +0000 Astronomers discovered a new moon of Uranus and hundreds of moons around Saturn over the past year, and there may be many more yet to be found | |
Alpine communities face uncertain future after 2025 glacier collapseTue, 23 Dec 2025 17:00:59 +0000 Careful slope monitoring prevented mass casualties in the landslide at Blatten, Switzerland, this year, but mountain communities may face a growing risk of disasters | |
How to extend and improve your life by getting more creativeTue, 23 Dec 2025 16:00:40 +0000 Growing evidence reveals that creativity is one of the best-kept secrets for boosting your health. From live theatre to a quick crafting break, here’s how to harness the power of art in your everyday life | |
The best space pictures of 2025, from supernovae to moon landingsTue, 23 Dec 2025 14:00:37 +0000 The year’s most memorable moments from astronomy and space exploration include a double-detonating supernova, a private moon landing and a stunning lunar eclipse | |
How lab-grown lichen could help us to build habitations on MarsTue, 23 Dec 2025 12:00:43 +0000 Scientists cultivating partnerships of fungi and algae believe their invention has far-out implications for how we create the buildings of the future | |
Gene therapy for Huntington’s disease showed great promise in 2025Tue, 23 Dec 2025 11:00:33 +0000 An experimental gene therapy seems to slow the progression of Huntington’s disease by about 75 per cent, and researchers are working to make its complicated delivery much more practical | |
IVF success may depend on how long men abstain from ejaculationTue, 23 Dec 2025 07:00:07 +0000 Ejaculating within 48 hours of providing a sperm sample for IVF seems to lead to greater success rates than abstaining from ejaculation for longer | |
Europa's thick ice may hinder the search for life in its oceansTue, 23 Dec 2025 08:00:33 +0000 The liquid ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa appears to be completely sealed off from the planet’s surface, which may reduce the chances of finding life there | |
New Scientist changed the UK's freedom of information laws in 2025Mon, 22 Dec 2025 17:00:28 +0000 By requesting copies of the then-UK technology secretary's ChatGPT logs, New Scientist set a precedent for how freedom of information laws apply to chatbot interactions, helping to hold governments to account | |
A spectacular showcase of animal pictures from 2025Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:32 +0000 Our visual highlights from the animal world this year include a mouse caring for its companion, dolphins communicating in an unexpected way and a colossal squid caught on camera for the first time | |
Hopes of finding aliens were raised in 2025 – but quickly fadedMon, 22 Dec 2025 11:00:48 +0000 Astronomers thought they had seen the "first hints of life on an alien world" this year, but they disappeared under closer scrutiny | |
Black hole stars really do exist in the early universeMon, 22 Dec 2025 10:00:37 +0000 Mysterious ‘little red dots’ seen by the James Webb Space Telescope can be explained by a new kind of black hole enshrouded in an enormous ball of glowing gas | |
What I’ll be doing to help detox my brain in the new yearMon, 22 Dec 2025 06:00:43 +0000 We have only just started to understand how our brains clean themselves, but columnist Helen Thomson finds promising evidence for how to boost this process | |
How 3 imaginary physics demons tore up the laws of natureWed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:06 +0000 Three thought experiments involving “demons” have haunted physics for centuries. What should we make of them today? | |
Cosmology’s Great Debate began a century ago – and is still goingWed, 17 Dec 2025 11:00:40 +0000 Our understanding of the true nature of the cosmos relies on measurements of its expansion, but cosmologists have been arguing back and forth about it for more than 100 years | |
We’ve finally cracked how to make truly random numbersTue, 09 Dec 2025 10:00:48 +0000 From machine learning to voting, the workings of the world demand randomisation, but true sources of randomness are surprisingly hard to find. Now quantum mechanics has supplied the answer | |
Roman soldiers defending Hadrian’s Wall had intestinal parasitesFri, 19 Dec 2025 00:00:47 +0000 Excavations of sewer drains at a Roman fort in northern England have revealed the presence of several parasites that can cause debilitating illness in humans | |
Putting data centres in space isn't going to happen any time soonFri, 19 Dec 2025 14:42:35 +0000 From massive solar panels to the difficulty of staying cool - not to mention high-energy radiation - there are a lot of engineering problems that need to be solved before we can build data centres in space | |
The US beat back bird flu in 2025 – but the battle isn’t overFri, 19 Dec 2025 14:00:46 +0000 After starting the year with its first known bird flu death, the US expanded its efforts to contain the virus, which enabled it to end its public health emergency response months later | |
Quantum computers turned out to be more useful than expected in 2025Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:00:45 +0000 Rapid advances in the kind of problems that quantum computers can tackle suggest that they are closer than ever to becoming useful tools of scientific discovery | |
2025 was the year of online safety laws – but do they work?Fri, 19 Dec 2025 11:00:27 +0000 New laws in the UK, Australia and France were brought in during 2025 with the aim of protecting children from harmful content online, but experts remain divided on whether they will achieve this goal | |
High-achieving adults rarely began as child prodigiesFri, 19 Dec 2025 11:00:15 +0000 It's easy to assume that the most talented adults among us were once gifted children, but it turns out that talent during childhood is no guide to later success | |
Two asteroids crashed around a nearby star, solving a cosmic mysteryThu, 18 Dec 2025 19:00:49 +0000 A pair of nascent planets have been caught smashing together around the nearby star Fomalhaut, and in doing so have solved the puzzle of its famous ‘planet’ | |
Closure of US institute will do immense harm to climate researchThu, 18 Dec 2025 17:52:58 +0000 The National Center for Atmospheric Research has played a leading role in providing data, modelling and supercomputing to researchers around the world – but the Trump administration is set to shut it down | |
Sitting by a window may improve blood sugar levels for type 2 diabetesThu, 18 Dec 2025 16:00:55 +0000 Our cells follow 24-hour circadian rhythms that regulate our blood sugar levels and are heavily influenced by light exposure. Scientists have harnessed this to show that just sitting by a window improves blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes | |
Chance of a devastating asteroid impact briefly spiked in 2025Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:06 +0000 A building-sized asteroid had a 1-in-32 chance of hitting Earth at its peak, but astronomers soon found there was zero chance of it impacting the planet | |
Strange lemon-shaped exoplanet defies the rules of planet formationWed, 17 Dec 2025 16:30:23 +0000 A distant world with carbon in its atmosphere and extraordinarily high temperatures is unlike any other planet we’ve seen, and it’s unclear how it could have formed | |
Chronic fatigue syndrome seems to have a very strong genetic elementWed, 17 Dec 2025 16:00:46 +0000 The largest study so far into the genetics of chronic fatigue syndrome, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, has implicated 259 genes – six times more than those identified just four months ago | |
People saw a new colour for the first time in 2025Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:25 +0000 Scientists found a way to let people perceive an intense blue-green hue unlike anything they had seen before – and the technique could help people with colour blindness | |
Did ancient humans start farming so they could drink more beer?Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:00:06 +0000 New evidence suggests that alcohol was a surprisingly big motivator in our monumental transition from hunting and gathering to farming – but was beer really more important to us than bread? | |
Why we only recently discovered space is dark not brightWed, 10 Dec 2025 10:00:55 +0000 For centuries, Europeans thought that eternal daylight saturated the cosmos. The shift to a dark universe has had a profound psychological impact upon us | |
China's carbon emissions may have started to fall in 2025Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:50 +0000 The world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide is on the cusp of a turning point that could herald the beginning of a global decline in fossil fuel use | |
Crash clock says satellites in orbit are three days from disasterTue, 16 Dec 2025 11:30:20 +0000 Satellites in orbit would begin to collide in a matter of days if they lost manoeuvrability during a solar storm or other outage | |
The world will soon be losing 3000 glaciers every yearMon, 15 Dec 2025 16:00:36 +0000 Under current climate policies, 79 per cent of the world’s glaciers will disappear by 2100, endangering the water supply for 2 billion people and raising sea levels dramatically | |
Saturn's rings form a giant dusty doughnut encircling the planetTue, 16 Dec 2025 08:00:52 +0000 The rings of Saturn are normally thought to be flat, but measurements by the Cassini spacecraft show that some of their particles fly hundreds of thousands of kilometres above and below the thin main discs | |
Your period may make sport injuries more severeTue, 16 Dec 2025 05:00:47 +0000 Professional football players who became injured while on their period took longer to recover than when injuries occurred at other times of their menstrual cycle | |
AI firms began to feel the legal wrath of copyright holders in 2025Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:32 +0000 Big AI firms have built their models by hoovering up copyrighted material from the internet as training data. They say this is legal, but copyright holders disagree - and this year they hit back in a major way | |
How green hydrogen could power industries from steel-making to farmingMon, 15 Dec 2025 11:00:06 +0000 Many industries are eyeing up hydrogen as a source of clean energy, but with supplies of green hydrogen limited, we should prioritise the areas where it could have the most positive impact on carbon emissions, say researchers | |
Science still produced many wonders in 2025 despite being under siegeWed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 Though there were setbacks on climate change and funding for science this year, there was still plenty of amazing discoveries to marvel at | |
The stargazing events to look forward to in 2026Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 There are a host of celestial events to get excited about next year – including a total solar eclipse. Abigail Beall is lining up her calendar | |
Are we living in a simulation? This experiment could tell usMon, 08 Dec 2025 10:00:13 +0000 The idea that we might be living in a simulated reality has worried us for centuries. Now physicists have found some tantalising clues – and devised an experiment that might reveal the truth | |
What the family drama of interbreeding polar and grizzly bears revealsMon, 08 Dec 2025 16:00:21 +0000 A hybrid grolar bear saga is unfolding in the Arctic, and the tale of this strange family has much to tell us about nature on our changing planet | |
The 33 best books, films, games and TV to entertain you this ChristmasTue, 09 Dec 2025 14:52:21 +0000 Our writers and contributors have chosen their favourite ever science-y books, films, TV shows, music, video games, board games and more to see you through the festive period | |
Some Arctic warming ‘irreversible’ even if we cut atmospheric CO2Fri, 12 Dec 2025 17:00:41 +0000 Efforts to lower the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere may come too late to prevent long-term changes to the Arctic | |
Mars may once have had a much larger moonFri, 12 Dec 2025 15:00:49 +0000 There are two small moons in orbit around Mars today, but both may be remnants of a much larger moon that had enough of a gravitational pull to drive tides in the Red Planet's lost lakes and seas | |
Qubits break quantum limit to encode information for longerFri, 12 Dec 2025 08:00:32 +0000 Controlling qubits with quantum superpositions allows them to dramatically violate a fundamental limit and encode information for about five times longer during quantum computations | |
De-extinction was big news in 2025 – but didn't live up to the hypeWed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:42 +0000 Biologists poured cold water on Colossal Biosciences’ claim to have brought the dire wolf back from extinction, and some worry the overblown headlines will undermine conservation work | |
Test your brain on these mind-bending scientific riddlesWed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:13 +0000 A bizarre Christmas dinner invitation, some mysterious carol singers and even a spot of charades. Can you solve all 12 of our unique festive riddles? | |
Can you work out what these enigmatic close-up photos are of?Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 Scientist and photographer Felice Frankel has zoomed in on everyday occurrences with her camera for her new book, Phenomenal Moments, which reveals the hidden science in our daily lives | |
Disney and OpenAI have made a surprise deal – what happens next?Thu, 11 Dec 2025 17:25:40 +0000 In a stunning reversal, Disney has changed tack with regard to safeguarding its copyrighted characters from incorporation into AI tools – perhaps a sign that no one can stem the tide of AI | |
Killer whales and dolphins are ‘being friends’ to hunt salmon togetherThu, 11 Dec 2025 16:00:31 +0000 White-sided dolphins seem to help killer whales "scout" and catch Chinook salmon near Vancouver Island, then eat the leftovers | |
Roman occupation of Britain damaged the population’s healthThu, 11 Dec 2025 00:01:51 +0000 Urban populations in southern Britain experienced a decline in health that lasted for generations after the Romans arrived | |